Thursday, July 17, 2008

I have limited time today but here are the quick Thursday pollinations :

1.Cal Springs LLC has added something nice to its line of California Bike Gear - An LDPE Plastic biogegradable water bottle [See Low Density Polyethylene]. There is a special additive in these water bottles that kick in the decomposition stage after the bottle has outlived its life or thrown into a landfill. These bottles completely become biogas and a biomass that then provide nutrients to the soil.

Boy, it'll suck if that 'additive' malfunctions and turns my bottle into biogas while I'm taking a sip from it..

2. Want something more to add to your green shopping basket? How about getting your bike on a green diet?!

So here's Green Oil Bicycle lube, also marketed as the "Ecological Chain Lube".

Ha! Its hard to associate oil with anything green but here's some key points I extracted in my own words from the company's website :

a) Green Oil is manufactured from naturally occurring plant extracts and not any petrochemicals like crude or palm oil hippie crap. The herbal blend produces a high performance lubricant. Green Oil contains no animal derivatives also. (The ingredients are all a trade secret, but puh-leese, I'm not putting some cowdung on my chain)

b) Green Oil does not contain petrochemical components, or Teflon. Perfluorooctanoic acid, a compound used to make Teflon is a likely carcinogen (proven??). Teflon production in the USA was subject to a $300 million lawsuit in 2004, as a result of ground water pollution in Ohio and West Virginia.

Russ : I have zero experience with it, but what you're basically getting is a strain gage based crankset spider. Its designed by James Mayer, a mechanical engineer whose background experience is MIT related, and the really nice thing I like about this system is that they have already jumped on wireless ANT+Sport digital technology off the bat and their computer applications are all open source.

Actually, I'm against riding with Ipods in my ears as a whole, maybe you meant Iphone Russ? Those things are pretty sleek but when you place them on a handlebar, it sure looks ugly. I guess Apple still hasn't come to the idea of 'sleek' that cyclists look for, huh?